First posted on the AFL-CIO’s News Blog
by Seth Michaels, Oct 18, 2007

Republicans in Washington have had their hands dirtied by plenty of scandals in recent months, but this latest action has to rank among the lowest. In an effort to beat back full funding for children’s health care, the staff of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) supported a smear campaign against a 12-year-old survivor of a car crash.

The experiences of the Frost family of Baltimore highlight the need for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). A hard-working, two-job family with four children, the Frosts were struck by tragedy: a car accident nearly killed two of their children. Without adequate heath coverage, the Frosts were headed for bankruptcy or worse. Because of SCHIP, the Frosts could afford the five months of hospitalization that allowed their children to survive.

Graeme Frost, the family’s 12-year-old son, recently delivered a radio address in support of SCHIP. He requested that Congress override Bush’s veto of the program, so that millions of others like him wouldn’t be denied the health care they need.

Reactionary bloggers spent several days harassing the family and looking for “proof” the Frosts were too wealthy to “deserve” SCHIP. Over several days, these bloggers—including Fox News correspondent Michelle Malkin—made unfounded, speculative claims about Graeme Frost and his family, staked out their house and questioned their neighbors and posted photos of the Frost family’s home online. The Baltimore Sun chronicled the harassment that made an ordinary family the target of conservative media outlets like National Review, Rush Limbaugh and more.

While the national media picked up and passed on the lies and false assertions from these blogs, they have not been so quick to let the public know the extent of McConnell’s involvement.

Progressive bloggers at the national level and Kentucky bloggers in the Bluegrass State have not let the smear campaign slip by. National bloggers such as Jonathan Cohn, Ezra Klein and Hilary Bok have been on the case from the beginning. As Klein notes:

The Frost family’s situation highlights our health care system’s moral injustices, economic failing, and simple absurdities…like millions of other Americans, they’ve found that doing everything right doesn’t mean you can afford health insurance.

Is it really the stance of conservatives, compassionate or otherwise, that their children should lack medical coverage? Is this what the modern Republican Party has come to? Because make no mistake: It’s families like the Frosts who’ll be helped by S-CHIP’s expansion.

Think Progress uncovered the involvement of McConnell’s staff in furthering the smear campaign. Think Progress obtained an e-mail sent to reporters by McConnell’s communications director, Don Stewart, in which he touted the claims the extremist bloggers made about the Frost family. (Stewart later sent an e-mail to the same reporters, acknowledging the accusations about the Frosts didn’t stand up to scrutiny.)

Stewart sent the e-mail Monday, Oct. 8. As word spread that McConnell may have had a hand in pushing the attacks on Frost and his family, McConnell went into denial mode. That Thursday, McConnell told Louisville’s WHAS-TV that his staff had “no involvement” in the anti-Frost campaign. Yet McConnell knew this wasn’t true when he said it.

Ditch Mitch, a Kentucky blog, posted a video of McConnell lying to reporters about his staff’s involvement in the smear campaign. Other Kentucky blogs, like Bluegrassroots, Bluegrass Report and Page One Kentucky, are keeping up the pressure on McConnell.

Two of McConnell’s home-state papers have criticized him for his role in the smear campaign and his attempt to cover it up. The Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal condemned McConnell and his staff in strongly worded editorials.

The Frosts exemplify our nation’s need for health care reform. They worked hard, played by the rules and tried to take care of their kids. They stepped forward in support of the program that saved the lives of their children. In return, they found themselves attacked by a right-wing campaign that went all the way from their own street to the leader of the Senate Republicans. Bonnie Frost told the Baltimore Sun:

I’m just trying to understand this moment of nastiness. The nastiness caught me by surprise.

McConnell and the Republican media machine that pushed these attacks should be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, as the failure to override Bush’s SCHIP veto shows, McConnell and his allies seem incapable of shame.